Provinciality and Domestic Space in Colonial Bengal

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The Journal of Architecture Volume 18 Number 6 Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal

Tania Sengupta The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, United Kingdom (Author’s e-mail address: [email protected])

This article focuses in detail on the domestic architecture of Indian town-dwellers within the context of provincial urbanisation in British colonial Bengal in the nineteenth century. It maps out the complex development of house-forms in provincial towns particularly in relation to rural-urban mobility and new social relationships brought about by the establishment of colonial governmental infrastructure in interior areas of the Bengal Province. Posit- ing these domestic forms to be as important as the much-studied ‘bungalow’ in terms of typological complexity as well as the range of social, political and economic processes that they represented, the article foregrounds them as being significant spatial models of colonial urban domesticity and modernity. It analyses the development of residential architecture in the light of the varied perceptions of provincial towns held by different constituencies among the urban population—such as European officers or Bengali rural immigrants— from a range of socio-economic classes. It argues that urban-rural mobility and the nature of changing but continuing connections between rural and urban locations created an incrementally growing provincial urban domestic architecture characterised by malleable notions of work, home and leisure spaces. This produced a typological flexibility and specific articulations of public and private domains within residential premises. The chief purpose of the paper is threefold: first, to make a case for Indian agency in the co-production of colonial architecture and urbanism; second, to argue the role of provincial spatial cultures and house forms as key bearers of colonial modernity; third, to explore colonial architectural history through on-ground mapping of everyday domestic spaces of individual families and varied social groups.

Introduction gradually becoming an increasingly global product Popular and to a large extent scholarly imagination over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. of colonial domestic architecture in India, up until It is also considered to be a quintessential hybrid the turn of the twenty-first century, has often been form epitomising transcultural processes—forged dominated by the ‘bungalow’ as an architectural by spatially crossing European ways of living with type. Brought into academic focus by seminal the exigencies as well as benefits of tropical life— studies such as Anthony D. King’s work from the and one that then underwent continuous formal late 1970s,1 the bungalow is seen as the classic colo- and semantic transformations in a range of contexts. nial domestic building, originating in India but Even though scholars such as King do acknowledge

# 2013 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted. 1360-2365 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2013.853683 906

Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal Tania Sengupta

that the architectural development of the bungalow incrementality and flexibility in residential architec- took place under the custodianship of both Euro- ture that arose from the nature of urban-rural inter- pean and Indian agency, in terms of typology, it face within the context. The architectural has often been projected as the single most signifi- developments of these buildings, in fact, were also cant building form produced within the Indian colo- closely linked with and in parts drew upon, the bun- nial context.2 galow typology itself: and in that sense all these While recognising the power of the bungalow together constituted the overall, rather hetero- idea in terms of its simultaneous ubiquity and local- geneous, but agile, spatial culture of provincial dom- isation, this article foregrounds certain other sites, esticity in colonial Bengal. I thus suggest that being processes and models of domesticity that were key bearers of a dynamic negotiation of change in equally part of the colonial spatial landscape. My a situation of political, economic and cultural flux, sites of engagements are the houses of Indian these provincial residential landscapes actively con- town-dwellers in provincial areas of Bengal during tributed towards a colonial modernity which is the nineteenth century. Such an interest marks and often attributed mostly to major urban centres and is part of a larger turn in recent post-colonial scholar- European agency, action and innovation. ship (since 2005), for example in the works of Jyoti The paper engages with smaller narratives of indi- Hosagrahar, Anoma Pieris and Swati Chattopad- vidual families within the larger developments in hyay, that focuses on the role of indigenous colonial provincial urbanisation in India. Rather agency as co-producers of colonial domestic land- than work merely with material housed in formal scapes and the ensuing spatial hybridities.3 Crucially, archives, I have personally studied and documented my paper further extends this conceptual thread into all the domestic premises mentioned in the paper the everyday residential architecture of the colonial through detailed first-hand measurement and draw- provincial ‘margins’ or ‘peripheries’. ings. I have also mapped the social histories of By studying the domestic spatial cultures and families and incremental development of house everyday lives which emerged as a result of particular forms through drawings, interviews, conversations, types of rural-urban movement that characterised a variety of formal and informal familial and govern- colonial urbanisation in interior areas of India, the mental documents, biographies, personal memoirs article argues that along with the European officer’s as well as literary texts of the period. or Bengali elite bungalow, various other types of upper-, middle- and lower-middle class houses in provincial towns also represented dynamic transcul- Colonial enterprise and provincial urbanisation tural and trans-local processes (such as those invol- Provincial urbanisation in nineteenth century Bengal ving urban and rural locations) and produced took place largely around colonial commercial newer paradigms of living, working and leisure. or administrative enterprise.4 This paper focuses More specifically, I make a case for the typological on the administrative towns, called zilla sadar 907

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Figure 1. Bengal in British India and zilla sadar towns in lower Bengal.

Figure 2. Cutcherry complex, Bankura. 908

Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal Tania Sengupta

(or simply sadar in common parlance) which were ampur); and the transient mufassal [provincial] centres for the collection of agricultural revenue towns subject to the fast-moving flows of local pol- from vast hinterland regions. After defeating the itical developments (eg, Bakarganj). In the decades nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, following the Battle of Plassey, much of the the English East India Company, formerly operating nawabi infrastructure was dismantled. The land primarily as a trading agency, received from the reforms instituted by the East India Company in Moghul emperor in Delhi the diwani or rights to 1793 (the Permanent Settlement)6 saw the decline collect taxes from agricultural land in the province of a number of zamindari towns. Due to the shift of Bengal in 1765. In order to mobilise this, the ter- in the nature of British colonial interest from trade ritory was divided into revenue districts. In and to revenue administration and the increasing sup- around 1786, the post of the District Collector was pression of other European powers in the region, created, with substantial administrative power del- by the end of the eighteenth century most European egated to this level, and headquarter towns for factory towns also petered out. It is within such a each district were also clearly designated (Fig. 1). It context of other declining urban centres that zilla was this very territorial and operational framework sadar towns, centered on colonial governmental of revenue administration, in fact, that later functions, developed. They marked a new type of morphed into the political-administrative apparatus provincial urbanisation characterised by a more reg- of imperial government after 1858.5 The colonial ularly distributed network of towns.7 Most of the office (called the cutcherry) complex (Fig. 2)—con- towns in question (such as Krishnangar, Bankura, sisting of the revenue office, judicial and magisterial Burdwan, Suri, Jessore, Barisal, Midnapur), courthouses, land record rooms, treasury and however, had varying levels of pre-colonial inhabita- sometimes other buildings such as district jails and tion in the form of port or market settlements, mer- police headquarters—formed the nerve centre of chant clusters, existing villages or populated hamlets each provincial town around which the spaces of under the patronage of feudal landlords. Various everyday life grew, such as those discussed in this new layers of inhabitation associated with the oper- article. ations of colonial revenue control were gradually Characterised by a somewhat low level of provin- grafted onto these from the early nineteenth cial urbanisation, as analysed by M. S. Islam, Bengal century onwards.8 had four broad types of towns before the late-eighteenth century: the metropolitan centres (eg, Dacca European officers and the provincial bungalow and Murshidabad) under Mughal and nawabi The cutcherry drew diverse constituencies of patronage; the zamindari towns under the patron- people, driven by different imperatives and age of the landed aristocracy (eg, Burdwan, Nadia, choices, to the zilla sadar. At its helm were Euro- Natore, Dinajpur or Bishnupur); the European pean officers such as the District Collector or Dis- trade-based factory towns (eg, Chinsura, Hugli, Srir- trict Judge to whom the provincial town often 909

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Figure 3. a. plan, Circuit Officer’s house, Bankura, early nineteenth century; b. provincial bungalow compound on the outskirts of Calcutta: Frederick Fiebig, watercolour on photograph, 1840s; Copyright: The British Library Board (IOR, Photo 247/ 1 (45).

Figure 4. Partial plan, District Collector’s bungalow, Bankura, late nineteenth century.

nature living and luxurious spatial and service provisions. The officer’s bungalow was the quintessential site where these contradictory relationships played out at the most extreme. Poised between isolation and exposure, denial of metropolitan amenities and plentitude of provincial provisions, it involved precarious trade-offs. In formal terms, the bungalow had a core-and-envelop arrangement, drawn from the Bengal rural hut (as shown by King, for instance) but also patterns derived from European precedents such as small neo-Palla- represented an unwelcome posting to a marginal dian English villas.10 The core itself comprised a 3x3 and peripheral location cut off from the metropoli- matrix of spaces housing main functions such as tan life of cities such as Calcutta or Dacca.9 But living, dining or bed rooms, and the envelop of a equally, in another sense, provincial posting shaded verandah selectively enclosed in parts to meant a move from the big city to the countryside form service-spaces such as store rooms, baths or and represented a lifestyle, albeit largely discon- lavatories (Fig. 3a). The bungalow was typically nected from high-urban amenities, of close-to- surrounded by a vast open space within what 910

Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal Tania Sengupta

was known as the ‘bungalow compound’, allowing into sadar towns triggered off the latters’ develop- possession of —and apparent command over—a ment as urban centres in the provincial landscape. large territory (Fig. 3b).11 The growing network of revenue, magisterial and The generous space standards in terms of room accountancy offices, treasuries, record rooms and sizes or the massive grounds of a bungalow, the law courts in the sadar had the District Collector, luxury of leisure spaces such as the verandah or the Judge or Magistrate at their helm, supported by terrace, the profusion of servants available for tropical Sub-divisional Officers, Assistant Magistrates or bodily care and domestic rituals, made the bungalow Sub-judges. Other than the few upper-level offi- de facto the material embodiment of the experience cers, most provincial cutcherries were manned of colonial power and plenty. Bungalows were typi- largely by native personnel. British revenue admin- cally characterised by a profusion of doors and istration was also inherently dependent on an elab- windows, a requisite originally of the hot-humid orate network of Indian tax-collectors and climate of Bengal but translating, in effect, into a zamindars, operating from rural bases in pre- or highly porous, low-privacy environment laden with early-colonial times. They too had an increasing the presence of native servants and support staff. presence and set up cutcherries in the zilla sadar Over the course of the nineteenth century the offi- in order to manage their tax payments and cer’s bungalow developed into complex forms with accounts as well as to attend to a plethora of multiple spaces plugged onto the basic format land, revenue and other civil and criminal litigations described above and invariably housed offices or in the district courts. By ensuring tax-collection con- work areas within domestic set-ups (Fig. 4). tracts in perpetuity, the Permanent Settlement had However, British officers actually comprised a minis- conferred de facto feudal property rights in rural cule percentage of the zilla sadar’s population; even estates to zamindars, who accumulated huge in the late nineteenth century it was rare to find surplus wealth from them.12 This in turn was more than twenty European families in any sadar spent in developing their dwellings in provincial town, the average figure being close to six or seven. towns, embodying the material base of an emer- The bulk of the sadar’s inhabitants were hetero- ging urban bourgeoisie. Most other rural migrants geneous groups of Bengalis, mostly moving from took up clerical and menial work in the colonial rural areas into these towns as colonial urbanisation cutcherries or in zamindari establishments. Other took root in nodal points within interior regions. than this, there was the emerging and increasingly powerful Bengali professional class (many of whom belonged to zamindari families)—consisting of Migrant Bengalis and the emerging urban lawyers, accountants, moktars [managers or repre- dwelling sentatives of men of influence], educationists and From the early-nineteenth century onwards, the doctors—which grew steadily, especially after movement of people from surrounding villages 1830.13 Around all this also grew intricate 911

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networks of commodity and service providers such Figure 5. a. village as merchants in bazaar areas, priests and mullahs in house, Bengal (source: Banglar Kutir [‘Huts of temples and mosques, and prostitutes in the cre- Bengal’], Ashok kumar vices of socially sanctioned town spaces. Kundu, Indrajit The shift to an urban economy, fuelled by Chowdhuri, eds., migration from rural areas in search of employment 2001); b. provincial in and around colonial establishments, was thus one urban middle-class house: the Mukherjee of the key drivers of the development of zilla sadar residence, towns. However, there were wider life spheres Krishnanagar, mid- from which this drew and upon which it had direct nineteenth century; and indirect impacts. The increasing gradient c. apportioning of land between rural and urbanising areas in Bengal was into nuclear units in rural to urban gradually inscribing a rather uneven map of privilege transformation. in terms of resources such as health, education facilities or quality of domestic living space. The growth of new institutions of healthcare and systems of education in provincial towns also brought about perceptions of unforeseen redundancies in village-based dwelling patterns and traditional know-how.14 A telling image of this emerging economic and cultural change and the ensuing rural-urban mobility is seen in an account by Kartikeyachandra, a middle-class Bengali gentleman, in the 1840s: By the time I attained youth, much had changed in terms of the quality of water and air, mode of education, behaviour and ettiquette, notions of hospitality and inter-personal relationships. Increasing environmental pollution makes it impossible now for reasonable cure of ailments by traditional doctors, and the emerging systems of education virtually render lessons by the Guru or the Ustad irrelevant. Cholera has emerged as the new demon, incidence of fever is more than ever before, eating habits have transformed, 912

Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal Tania Sengupta

Figure 6. Components of upper- or upper- middle-class house: schematic diagram based on the Chakrabarty residence, Suri.

English education is being introduced—in fact, Despite having more land attached, rural ancestral just about every facet of day-to-day life has wit- homes also housed large extended families within nessed a radical transformation. On top of this, limited space and were increasingly perceived to our financial situation has undergone massive be crowded and unhealthy. Due to this and later deterioration. Surviving and making a living in on the death of his son from an infectious Baruihuda [the ancestral village] is therefore disease, and his realisation of the limitations of becoming a Herculean task … I have started the village in dealing with such exigent circum- actively to look for a suitable place to live in, in stances, Kartikeyachandra soon moved to Krishna- Krishnanagar [the nearest provincial headquarters nagar and gradually consolidated his urban town].15 house. In describing the nature of his preferred 913

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urban dwelling in Krishnanagar, he in fact noted The outer house -The (zamindari or that: [bahir mahal or professional) cutcherry A place which affords a bit of land attached to bahir bari] (office) -The Baithak-khana the house so that one could have a garden, and (Work and leisure) (Guest entertainment/ that at the same time is in the midst of a neigh- leisure area) bourhood of kin-folks, is what I [he] was looking The inner house - Residential quarters for.16 [andar mahal or - Antur-ghar (maternity In comparison to the village, therefore, the single bhitor bari] (Home) room) family house with its own garden, a widely preva- - Children’s tutorial spaces lent model for urban middle-class homes in pro- - Ranna-ghar or Goshol- vincial towns by the mid-nineteenth century, khana (kitchen), wash marked an apportioning of residential plots of areas land into smaller and more autonomous parcels - Bath, lavatories for increasingly nuclearised urban living. Here, - Storage autonomy translated into one’s own dwelling - Servants’ quarters unit, some land for a private garden (albeit far - Other ancillary spaces (eg, less than in the rural property) and the freedom stables, cattle shed, rice- to shape one’s own environment. But equally husking area) crucial was the advantage drawn from the ‘collec- - Domestic temple and/or tive social’ in the form of rural kinship ties that shrine continued into provincial urban neighbourhoods (Fig. 5a, b, c). In its more rudimentary form (eg, in lower-level office clerks’ or other lower- and lower-middle- class households), the urban dwelling consisted of: Work, home, leisure and service spaces and typological inter-changeability The outer domain - The Baithak-khana (guest It is the inter-relationship between work, home, (Work and entertainment/ leisure) leisure and service spaces within the provincial leisure) urban Bengali dwelling that determined the nature The inner domain - Sleeping/living room/s of the composite domestic space and its functional (Home) - Kitchen, wash and social relationships. - Bath, lavatories17 Typically, in its most elaborate and developed - Domestic shrine form (eg, in a zamindari or wealthy professional household), the components of the urban dwelling Following on from rural practices, these functions in the sadar were (Fig. 6): were typically housed in a number of buildings 914

Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal Tania Sengupta

which were clustered together to make the overall cloth, shopkeepers with their accountancy dwelling. But interestingly, they were not necessarily books, hungry applicants, relatives, people discrete units. The primary functions regularly over- wanting appointments, a theatre leader and his lapped with each other. For example, the very troop of long haired boys, Brahmins who came same building could double up as a cutcherry and from afar, a couple of sadar-ala munsifs, ameen, a baithak-khana,acutcherry and a living quarter sadar ameen—filled up the baithak-khana and (usually for relatives or young male members of made it an intensely noisy place …… the family), or a baithak-khana and a living In the evening the baithak-khana was a differ- quarter. Different parts of a single building were ent scene altogether; flooded with dazzling either used for the different functions, or sometimes lights, filled with music and sounds of pleasure. the very same spaces were used at different points of The contortions of many an Ustad’s [maestro’s] time for different purposes. At times even such face and gurgling voice, the mellifluous sounds spatial or temporal distinctions ceased to exist. An of gifted singers—I can hardly forget. People evocative account, for instance, of the way leisure playing cards in one corner, chess in another; a and entertainment activities found their way into comedian friend of my father eliciting giant erup- the work-space of the domestic cutcherry, was tions of laughter in yet another portion; huge con- given by the eminent litterateur Rabindranath signments of food such as sweets, fish and meat Tagore, speaking of his childhood in the late- nine- arriving as gifts from people who had just won a teenth century: court-case in the morning … 19 After lunch, Gunadada [cousin Guna] used to In the house of Narahari Banerjee, a lawyer practis- come to conduct cutcherry [office] in this building. ing in the District Court in Krishnanagar in the The cutcherry was virtually like a club for them— 1860s, the cutcherry, an office in the daytime, also there wasn’t much of a separation between served as the baithak-khana for entertaining guests work and amusement.18 in the evening and was converted into a sleeping Describing his perceptions as a child growing up in space for male relatives and young boys of the the town of Chittagong (where his father was a house at night.20 Within the urban domestic set-up peshkar or presenter at the sadar court) in the of the zilla sadar such categories of space and func- 1860s, Nabinchandra Sen also described the chame- tions as cutcherry, baithak-khana and living areas, or leon-like character of spaces such as the baithak- work, leisure and home, were thus fluid and malle- khana, which dramatically changed colour able. This is especially true of the period up to the between daytime and evening: mid-nineteenth century. My father exercised immense influence at the One of the reasons why such interchange was time. In the morning he sat down for his possible was the generic nature of the basic building prayers; people swarmed into the baithak-khana type which offered a reasonable fit with a range of —Hindustani cloth merchants with bundles of functions. Plans of cutcherries, baithak-khanas and 915

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Figure 7. Hetampur zamindar’s cutcherry, Suri (left, above).

Figure 8. Cutcherry cum baithak-khana: the Chowdhury family house in Ghatbandar, Baharampur (left, below).

Figure 9. Ramdas Sen’s baithak-khana, Khagra bazaar, Baharampur (right, above).

Figure 10. Baithak- khana cum sleeping quarters: the Banerjee residence, Goari, Krishnanagar (right, below). 916

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mid-nineteenth century dwelling cum cutcherry or Incremental domestic space dwelling cum baithak-khana were virtually the One of the most significant factors that affected the same or near-identical: all based, in essence, on character of Bengali domestic spaces in the provin- the 3x3, 3x2, 2x2 or 3x4 spatial matrix or its variants cial context was the incremental nature of the devel- (figs 7, 8, 9, 10). This matrix arrangement was very opment of people’s urban bases. To large sections of similar, in principle, to the core space of the bungalow the native population moving from villages into the as well, although in this case, the annular verandah sadar, it represented a movement to the town: the usual in a bungalow form was often not present or ‘urban’ location. In ‘Atmacharit’ or his memoirs, present only in parts. Like the bungalow, one or Jogesh Chandra Bidyanidhi, a well-known Bengali two spaces along the central axis were sometimes, academic, whose father was a sadar-ala or sub- though not always, larger and served as the main judge in the district court in Bankura town, offices or entertainment rooms (typically 12-20 recounted his childhood impressions of their town- feet x 30-40 feet) buffered on either side by a set of dwelling when he moved from his native village in relatively narrow (typically 8-12 feet wide) spaces the mid-nineteenth century: housing smaller offices, store rooms and ancillary Our house in Bankura was made up of 3 buildings functions. However, while the bungalow was invari- —[which] belonged earlier to a west-Indian mer- ably a core and envelop arrangement, with a very chant. One had to enter from the east, on the clear hierarchy of primary and service spaces, cutcher- right was the east-facing, single-storeyed ries, baithak-khanas and living-space types consisted baithak-khana, in front the uthan [open court], of a more generic spatial matrix, with such hierarchies on the left the indara [well]. There was a nice sometimes acute and sometimes fairly diluted. It is thatched room on the right. Behind this were thus important to note that the matrix arrangement Bel trees, other flowering trees and banana was not exclusive to the bungalow or residential use trees.22 but traversed a range of uses and with modification, The idea of a few discrete units having different allowed the formation of a number of variants and functions connected by a central courtyard and models of inhabited space with different functions enclosed by a wall was characteristic of early- to and hierarchies. The other factor aiding multiple mid-nineteenth century rural habitation in Bengal roles for the same building was the nature of across different socio-economic classes and scales furniture typically used in middle-class Bengali house- of dwellings (see Figure 5a above).23 For instance, holds. These were fairly minimal and flexible, the feudal zamindari residences were typically spread most frequently used in these buildings being gadis over a large area, and in the hot-humid climate of (simple mattresses), floor rugs or the takhtaposh:a Bengal, a number of individual buildings were low wooden platform, about 1 foot high, which clustered loosely around one or more courtyards could be used as a work surface, a low divan to enter- (Fig. 11). Middle- or lower-middle-class village dwell- tain visitors, as well as a bed.21 ings followed a similar principle at smaller scales. As 917

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Figure 11. Drawing of the house of a wealthy provincial owner, Dinajpur (source, Robert Montgomery Martin, Eastern India, 1838). Note that Martin does not mention whether it is rural or urban, suggesting that the aggregatation of discrete built elements was possibly a common feature across these categories.

mentioned in the earlier section and also evident my family over to stay. … .. A few years later I from Jogeshchandra’s account, some of these embarked upon fashioning my own garden in the characteristics obviously flowed into the residential town … . After my garden and the baithak-khana spaces of the town. However, more often than were completed, I used to come there every not, compared to its rural counterpart, the initial evening from Baruihuda [the ancestral village] and home-base in the town was far more minimal; it my relatives came from Krishnanagar. All of us then grew incrementally. An account of such incre- spent time there until fairly late in the night … ..A mental development of the urban dwelling was full year passed but I could still not build a place suit- given by Kartikeyachandra, talking of his house in able for family-living due to paucity of funds. In Krishnanagar in the 1840s: 1854, my middle son suddenly contracted small … I finally settled for the present site [in the periph- pox … . Next day around 2 pm he passed away. ery of Krishnanagar] and first dug a tank and built a Finding that it was not wise to continue living in Bar- small building with a verandah. Unfortunately, I uihuda, I built a few more rooms behind the couldn’t build one that was suitable for bringing baithak-khana and moved my family there.24 918

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Figure 12. a. plan; forced to adopt in their early days in sadar towns, b. front view: Ramtanu that possibly created composite building types such Lahiri’s house, 1840s, as the baithak-khana-house or the cutcherry- Krishnanagar. house, maximising the use derived from a single building. Urban domestic incrementality also drew from a larger territorial gendering. During the period up to the mid-nineteenth century, a pronounced gender- split was inscribed between the village and the provincial town. Despite the presence of some pre-colonial habitation, sadar towns chiefly grew centered on the newer and emerging administrative functions, the uncertainties of which during the first half of the century, as well as the meagre scale of migrants’ initial earnings, possibly got in the way of an outright movement to them of entire families, especially women, from rural areas. This anxiety is clearly apparent in Kartikeyachadra’s account discussed earlier. The provincial town thus remained a predominantly male domain, inhabited by male family members and their servants working in the town. This was also reflected in the simple formations of the early dwellings. In his account, Jogeshchandra also talked about how their house Another example of a basic early urban dwelling was in Bankura did not contain a prayer space, which Ramtanu Lahiri’s house in Krishnanagar. Lahiri, an was an integral part of his village home and of eminent educationist and Bengali liberal intellectual, which the women were the custodians. Obviously, also moved into the same neighbourhood as Karti- spaces specific to feminine use did not figure keyachandra in 1846. While the peripheral location within these early town dwellings. of the site meant adequate land for a private By the mid-nineteenth century, people in employ- garden, the building itself had to be modest. It con- ment had made progress in consolidating their sisted of a baithak-khana, sleeping space, store and financial bases, making it easier to bring families to servants’ room, in a simple linear arrangement the sadar. A continuing lack of health and education (Fig. 12a, b).25 It was also such skeletal urban facilities in villages and the Governor General living, which many migrants from rural areas were William Bentinck’s reforms of administrative 919

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Figure 13. Plan: Lala residence, Suri.

languages and girls’ education, encouraged the shrines, kitchen and other service areas) primarily active use of urban health and English and vernacu- used by the female members and servants of the lar education facilities by newer generations and, to household. The overall system also became more some extent, even women. In such a scenario, town layered and complex, taking a number of different residences became the nuclei around which forms. attempts were made to recreate the completeness The first was a re-creation, roughly, of the loose- of rural familial life and spaces. As the scope of aggregate built-form reminiscent of the village urban homes gradually augmented after the mid- habitat: an attempt to re-capture a familiar lifestyle. nineteenth century, more buildings were added to These were typically found in peripheral areas of the spatial schemes. The full extent of the com- sadar towns where the pressure on land was rela- ponents of domestic structures listed above reveal, tively low. Examples are the Lala house in Suri beginning in this period, the substantial proportion (Fig. 13) or the Chowdhury house in Ghatbandar of spaces (eg, the inner house, maternity rooms, on the outskirts of Baharampur. But, more 920

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Figure 14. a. plan; b. view from the street: Banerjee residence, Goari, Krishnanagar. 921

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Figure 15. Courtyard house, Patpur, Bankura.

commonly, in large areas of the town where land maternity room and storage spaces around an was increasingly scarce, there was a tightening of inner court—to render it suitable for family living. this into more compact enclosures which offered Typologically, the compact courtyard formation an easier fit with small or medium-sized plots. could span a huge range: from large and medium- Such a formation was seen, for instance, in the large plots, to tiny bazaar houses. Within the wide house of the barrister Prasun Banerjee in the Goari range of social classes and groups that the sadar area of Krishnanagar, next to the district court housed, it thus found particularly wide application. complex: in the urban core (Fig. 14a, b). As men- The courtyard type was used, for example, in the tioned earlier, here, the baithak-khana (built small houses of poorer town inhabitants in the around the mid-nineteenth century)26 in its early Patpur area in Bankura (Fig. 15); in the medium- days trebled up as also the cutcherry and living sized houses of clerks in the employment of the unit. To this was added, in the late-nineteenth Maharaja (zamindar) of Krishnanagar (Fig. 16); or century, the inner-house—a compact cluster of that of a nazir27 employed in the cutcherry at Suri. sleeping and other multi-purpose areas, kitchen, It was used profusely in small and medium-sized 922

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Figure 16. A clerk’s house, Krishnanagar. 923

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Figure 17. a. plan; b. street view of house: Bara Bazaar, Bankura. 924

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Figure 18. a. plan; b. courtyard house, Krishnanagar. 925

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Figure 19. The Sinha- Roy family house, Goari, Krishnanagar.

bazaar houses of merchants and prostitutes could, for instance, sit directly abutting a public (Fig. 17a, b). Often, these houses incorporated street (ie, in a built-to-edge formation) in dense elements of European neo-classical or Victorian urban areas while retaining the interiority of its architecture on the exterior façade whilst retaining more private spaces (see also figs 15, 16, 17, 18 the traditional courtyard formation that could pre- generally). On the other hand, in many cases (eg, serve much of the aspects of rural lifestyle in its the Sinha-Roy family house in Krishnanagar) planning (Fig. 18a, b). One of the key assets of despite substantial plot sizes in town peripheries, the courtyard type was its versatility in negotiating the built component was still condensed to a outer and inner or public and private domains, compact courtyard form, leaving open grounds for diverse functions, and different relationships with gardens and orchards—instead of opting for a urban elements like the street. The courtyard type straightforward bungalow or villa form (Fig. 19). 926

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Figure 20. The This was a conscious choice evidently, perceived as Mukherjee residence, offering a closer fit with indigenous lifestyles cen- Kalitala, Bankura: a, b, tered on tightly-knit social and familial structures, c, d–successive stages of plot and built-form whilst simultaneously allowing for outdoor spaces development over the modelled on bungalow compounds. nineteenth and early- The other major driver dictating the incremental twentieth centuries; e– development of residential premises was the view of the inner process of sub-division and densification within a courtyard. plot. Usually, each family reached a ceiling of land- holding size within the urban area by the mid- to late-nineteenth century28 beyond which (or even before which) the plot was successively sub-divided over generations between the heirs, resulting in its densification (Fig. 20a, b, c, d, e). This was especially true of the central areas of towns where acquiring new land as and when needed was not easily possible. What is interesting though is that at every stage and within each cellular unit, there was a continuous attempt to preserve a spatial formation rooted in rural lifestyle, while overlaying it with the emerging conceptions of urban living. Each unit thus consisted of a cluster of structures around a central open space reminiscent of the rural home, with more public rooms like the baithak-khana—specific to the culture of urban living—placed on its outer edge.29 On the other hand, in some cases, as they expanded, some families chose not to build on the same site as the original dwelling; instead, further plots were acquired within the town for different branches of the family.30 This was the case, for instance, with the house of Kalicharan Lahiri, the brother of Ramtanu Lahiri (Fig. 21) or that of Lalmo- han Ghosh, the brother of the late-nineteenth of the kinship basis of neighbourhood formations century barrister Monomohan Ghosh, in Krishnana- that sadar towns had been predominantly character- gar. Such instances also caused a partial break-down ised by until the mid-nineteenth century. 927

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counterpart was the strong demarcation of the Figure 20. (Continued.) andar-bahir or the inner and outer domains, and an increasingly reinforced delineation of the public domain within private houses. This effect was pronounced by the late nineteenth century. Within the simultaneous exposure and anonymity that urban living brought, this became a defining aspect of urban domesticity. Rabindranath Tagore’s descrip- tion in the novel Jogajog brought out this separation very effectively: ‘In the tradition of the aristocratic rich, Mukundalal’s life is also spilt into two quarters—the quarter of domesticity and the quarter of fun-n-frolic and company of friends.’31 Compared to pre-colonial or rural habitats, such clear articula- In many ways, the sadar was a place for trade-offs. tions of public-private and outer-inner domains, cor- Another common form of dwelling was one which responding further to gendered male-female spatial from the outside appeared like an extroverted villa renditions, was specific to colonial urban contexts. sitting in the midst of vast grounds, but on the As shown by the historian Partha Chatterjee, this inside held a network of tightly knit, introverted was, in fact, a key instrument through which: buildings around a courtyard/s (see Figure 5b Anticolonial nationalism creates [created] its own above; Fig. 22). Calibrated between urban and domain of sovereignty within colonial society rural, and European and Indian paradigms, it was a well before it begins [began] its political battle response to the simultaneous demands of exteriority with the imperial power. It does [did] this by divid- and interiority that the sadar’s `intermediate urban- ing the world of social institutions and practices ism’ evidenced. This in turn was linked closely to into two domains—the material and the spiritual. the evolving notion of private and public domains The material is the domain of the ‘outside’…the that developed in the sadar, especially in the late- spiritual, on the other hand, is an ‘inner’ nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, discussed domain bearing the essential marks of cultural in greater detail in the next section. identity … .32 Feeding into this duality was also the complex Inner and outer domains relationship between the rural and urban sites of While some essential attributes of rural habitats domesticity, the close tie between which continued flowed into the domestic spaces of the zilla sadar, well into the twentieth century. The ‘home’ was one of the most significant aspects that clearly set now a composite entity—spatially split into and apart the provincial urban dwelling from its rural spanning two highly interconnected sites—the 928

Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal Tania Sengupta

Figure 21. Fragmentation of familial territories: the houses of Ramtanu and Kalicharan Lahiri, Krishnanagar.

bari (the rural native place) and the basha (the constituted the very essence of late-nineteenth and place in the town). Town dwellers regularly early-twentieth-century Bengali residences in zilla visited their rural homes, as were members of sadar towns: particularly visible in the houses of the extended family frequent and often long- the urban bourgeoisie or the bhadrolok.33 term guests in provincial urban houses. Younger Spatially, this translated into an exteriority articulat- male children came to the town to study and pro- ing their urban public role, on the one hand, and visions from rural farms were routinely sent to an interiority nurturing the familial spaces reminis- supply urban households. In many ways, this cent of village life, on the other. The outer domain two-pronged dialectic between the material and was also where the material connections to the spiritual realms, and the urban and rural locations, modern world were forged, the inner where 929

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Figure 22. The Mukherjee residence, Krishnanagar. 930

Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal Tania Sengupta

inherited cultural practices and patterns were nur- and a separate, more grandiose entry, marked by tured and developed. double-height columns, directly from the street for Bought as a villa in the late nineteenth century by the general public of the town. The double-height Satyakinkar Sahana, a mica merchant and chairman internal volume of the baithak-khana was sur- of the town municipality, the Sahana residence in rounded by galleries on the upper level, edged Bankura was a classic example (Fig. 23a, b, c, d). with bamboo blinds to allow women of the house Its elaborate outer quarters were gradually devel- —who had direct access from the inner-house into oped to include a baithak khana or drawing-cum- this area—to view the performances. It thus entertainment room, a dedicated ‘wireless room’ allowed a trade-off between private viewing and (de facto an auditory conduit to a larger modern public spectacle. world), guest rooms with attached lavatories, orna- Baithak-khanas were also active sites for the adda, mental front gardens, and a portico and internal a quintessential Bengali pursuit, whereby people loop road to receive the new motor car. Equally, a would regularly gather to meet friends and have series of introverted enclaves behind the outer- involved exchanges on anything from anecdotal house accommodating cooking areas, maternity humour, everyday experiences, town gossip, to cul- rooms, tutoring spaces for children and storage for tural and political discourse.37 Added to this was staples and provisions arriving from the rural ances- the collection and display of an array of artefacts tral home, continued to inscribe the village within its from different parts of the world: the baithak- interior spaces.34 khana in the Chakrabarty house in Suri, for The outer-quarters of provincial urban homes did example, apparently contained Belgian glass chan- not merely house the more publicly oriented func- deliers, mirrors, Italian hand-painted tiles and tions of a largely private residential dwelling: they Chinese pottery.38 The provincial urban baithak- often acted as virtually an extension of the larger khana thus became a kaleidoscopic window public domain of the town itself and, in turn, of crafted from diverse cultural fragments that con- the evolving urban public sphere with which Cal- nected the limited world of diminutive interior cutta in the late nineteenth century had become towns in Bengal to a global landscape. de facto synonymous.35 Provincial elite homes some- At all levels in the sadar, big or small, the urban times housed public libraries, mini-museums36 and dwelling simultaneously played such dual roles: an entertainment and performance areas. The Chakra- urban entity with high public exposure and a barty residence in Suri, for instance, boasted a private residential realm. One of the aspects grand, double-height baithak-khana, which through which this was modulated was the became an important site for regular public perform- manner in which it fitted into the physical fabric of ances for music, dance, poetry and theatre (see its urban context. While in large plots (especially in Figure 6 above; Fig. 24a, b). It had an entry town peripheries) the front garden mediated the through the outer court for close acquaintances relationship between the street and the house, in 931

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Figure 23. a. plan and section; b. front view; c. inner courtyard: Sahana residence, late- nineteenth/early- twentieth centuries, Bankura. 932

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Figure 23. (Continued.) 933

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Figure 24. a. ground and first-floor plans, section; b. view from outer court: Baithak- khanna of the Chakrabarty residence, Suri. 934

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Figure 25. Ground and first-floor plans; section: Bazaar house, Churipatti, Jessore. 935

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Figure 26. Nazir’s house, Suri. 936

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Figure 27. a. plan; b. view of entrance: brothel, Bazaar area, Burdwan. 937

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small town houses on bazaar streets the front was within areas previously out-of-bounds for the East typically dedicated to a public layer of shops, the India Company, and the emergence of new points back to storage and the upper level or rear of the of administrative control. Economically, it meant house to private residential quarters which were the consolidation of the Company’s revenue collec- themselves clustered around an internal court tions through the linkage between provincial admin- (Fig. 25). In medium-sized houses in public streets istrative towns and the agricultural hinterland, as (Fig. 26), the front layer contained the baithak- also the emergence of a provincial urban economy khana and shops, whilst the back and upper floor centered on employment in colonial offices as well contained the residential quarters around an intro- as professional services and bazaar-based com- verted court.39 But even such renditions of public merce. Socially, it meant the gradual formation of and private domains had, by necessity, to be a provincial European as well as a heterogeneous graded and varied. In mid-to-late-nineteenth- Bengali urban society consisting, among others, of century prostitute quarters, for example, blatantly a massive migrant population from rural areas. This public rooms such as the baithak-khana were in turn was galvanised by and produced different often non-existent (Fig. 27a, b). Here the public types of mobility of varied groups of people domain was the street itself, and taking off from between big cities, provincial towns and villages. this were obscure alleyways, usually with at least Provincial urban domestic architecture thus one turn, that enabled only an indirect access to inscribed the ensuing cultural meanings and trans- the inner house: negotiating the distinction formations brought about by such complex pro- between the outside and the inside. Even inside, cesses and movements. Poised between peripheral rooms were accessed through subsidiary spaces, or marginality and provincial luxury, the domestic set indirect routes, to allow for privacy and an intricate ups of European officers, centered on the Bunga- interiority. In response to varying needs, a wide low—with its core and envelope format and gener- range of spatial relationships thus forged the dialec- ous internal and external spaces—typically tic between inner and outer domains. epitomised the rural-idyllic notion of habitat. In this spatial imagination, the provincial urban dwelling Conclusion was seen and pursued chiefly as an entity contigu- The overall development of the domestic architec- ous with the countryside. On the other hand, for ture of the zilla sadar took place within and was upper-, middle- and lower-middle- class Bengalis shaped by a far larger and complex cultural land- the town dwelling had clearly urban connotations: scape of political, economic and social change involving completely different trade-offs between related to the establishment of a colonial govern- plot/land size, improved health and aesthetic poten- mental apparatus within the interior areas of tial, autonomy of self-expression and the continuity Bengal. Politically, this process involved the steady of kinship networks with respect to the rural dom- inroads of colonial (and later imperial) presence estic base. Although these paradigms sometimes 938

Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal Tania Sengupta

appeared similar (as in the case of the bungalow and ticity at varying scales, not only within urban the middle-class Bengali house with a garden, both residential premises but extending over an area of which were essentially modelled on ‘built form spanning villages and towns. In fact, the rural and surrounded by space’) or actively drew upon each urban houses of each family together, spread over other (for example, the hybrid bungalow/villa-court- town and country, effectively constituted a compo- yard house discussed earlier), much of the actual site domestic space. In that sense colonial provincial internal formations, and the meanings that each urbanisation signified a new type of territorialisation held for their inhabitants, seem to have been dis- of domestic spaces with respect to social structures tinct. at different scales. Colonial urbanisation in provincial areas was fun- The skeletal nature of early- to mid-nineteenth damentally instrumental to a rural-urban split along century provincial urban domestic set-ups also often with a differentiated development of privilege and involved combined work-cum-leisure-cum-residential provision. But equally, these varied locations—city, buildings, mobilised through typological versatility town and village—continued to remain intrinsically and flexibility. Such inter-changeability of functions connected, since most inhabitants of the sadar within forms in fact came to be an enduring blueprint retained strong links with their ancestral places of provincial domestic architecture in Bengal right while enjoying the exposure to urban living. Provin- through the nineteenth century, even when residen- cial urbanisation also meant a degree of nuclearisa- tial formations became more elaborate. Urban dwell- tion and fragmentation of families not only from ings also took a variety of (often hybrid) forms—eg, villages to provincial towns but their gradual disper- loose aggregate, tight courtyard, courtyard-cum- sal even within the towns themselves. However, villa, ranging from small bazaar houses to elaborate despite such fragmentation, linkage between rural mansions—depending on the plot size or their rela- and urban areas, or between parts of extended tive location within the town. As such, they could family units, actively continued in other forms and offer different fits with the needs of the various in effect resulted, over the period of the nineteenth social groups inhabiting the sadar. Urban-rural dialec- century, in complex domestic spatial patterns reflect- tic also played out in the increasingly strong articula- ing a characteristic incrementality. This is seen, for tion of exteriority and interiority of provincial houses: example, in the transformation from minimal and pursuing the cohesive clustering of rural lifestyles in male-centred early urban dwellings to more the inner, women-centred domain and the extro- layered, gendered and intricate ones by the late verted public-ness of urban life in the outer male-cen- nineteenth century in order to absorb the inflow of tered domain. staples and provisions, young male members, other Through a range of such complex and dynamic relatives and, later, even women, from villages into processes domestic buildings in the provincial urban households. Continuing rural-urban connec- towns of Bengal thus came to act as sites where tions also affected the spatial structures of domes- social, political, economic and cultural change was 939

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creatively negotiated during the course of the nine- Fraser and Samir Pandya, to Swati Chattopadhyay teenth century. A large range of local Bengali and Indra Sengupta for their insights and sugges- actors played a key role in such negotiations tions, and to Gautam Bhadra and Indrajit Chowdh- between European and Indian or rural and urban ury for pointers to invaluable reference material. I spatial paradigms to forge newer pan-regional dom- am also deeply grateful to Sukumar Sinha, Sanjit estic landscapes and architectural types. These socio- Dutta, Debashish Mukherjee, Mrinal Roy and Nirad- spatial narratives in effect allow us to recover the baran Sarkar for helping me to discover many of the key, but hitherto marignalised, roles of provincial sites of study in Suri, Krishnanagar, Bankura, Bahar- urbanism and architecture as well as that of ‘ordin- ampur and Burdwan. Above all, I am profoundly ary’ spaces of everyday living and Indian agency thankful to Debashish Mukherjee and Manik within the larger discourse on colonial architecture, Sahana of Bankura, Pradip and Ratna Banerjee and urbanism and modernity, disproportionately domi- Mrs. Mukherjee of Krishnanagar, Prabal Chakra- nated so far by large urban centres and iconic build- barty of Suri, Mrs. Sen of Baharampur and other ings seen to be produced chiefly through European house-owners and shop-keepers (who prefer to agency. remain anonymous) in bazaar streets and neighbourhoods for allowing me to study their family his- Acknowledgements tories and building premises. This paper is based on part of my doctoral thesis Note: unless otherwise stated, all drawings and entitled ‘Producing the Province: colonial govern- photographs were prepared by the Author. ance and spatial cultures in district headquarter – ’ towns of Eastern India 1786 c. 1900 , which I com- Notes and references pleted at the University of Westminster, London, in 1. A. D. King, Colonial Urban Development—Culture, March, 2011, and for which I was funded by a Social Power and Environment (London, Routledge School of Architecture and the Built Environment and Kegan Paul, 1976); The Bungalow: the production bursary of the University as well as a British Overseas of a global culture (London, Routledge, 1984). Research Scholarship. I am grateful also to the Paul 2. The bungalow and its continuing legacies attract sig- Mellon Centre for the British Arts for the award of nificant scholarly interest up to the present day: see, a substantial grant for my extensive fieldwork in eg, Miki and Madhavi Desai, Jon Lang, The Bungalow in Twentieth Century India (London, Ashgate, 2012). India for much of the material presented here. 3. See Swati Chattopadhayay, Representing Calcutta: Mod- Barnab Das, Pradip Sahu, Bhaskar Dey, Purbasha ernity, Nationalism and the Colonial Uncanny (London, Roy, Anjali Mittal, Vinay Saxena, Mrinal Rammohan, Routledge, 2005), pp. 136–224; S. Chattopadhayay, Chandkiran Nath, Florina Dutta, Sonia Guha and ‘The other face of primitive accumulation’,in, Shemul Kabir helped me with different aspects of P. Scriver, V. Prakash, eds, Colonial Modernities: Building, the fieldwork, measured drawings and images. I dwelling and architecture in British India and Ceylon am particularly grateful to my supervisors Murray (London, New York, Routledge, 2007), pp. 169–197; 940

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J. Hosagarhar, ‘Mansions to margins: Modernity and the article: Tania Sengupta, ‘Between country and city: domestic landscapes of historic Delhi 1847-1910’, fluid spaces of provincial administrative towns in nine- Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 60, teenth century Bengal’,inUrban History, 39, No.1 No.1 (March, 2001), pp. 26–45; A. Pieris, ‘The Trouser (February, 2012), pp. 56–82. under the cloth: personal space in colonial-modern 9. Provincial officers spent at least 3-6 months in Calcutta Ceylon’, in P. Scriver, V. Prakash, eds, Colonial Moder- before being sent to interior postings. nities, op. cit., pp. 209–218. 10. For a detailed study of nineteenth-century provincial offi- 4. A third type of colonial settlement, cantonments or cers’ bungalows, see the author’s PhD dissertation: Tania military stations, were centres of specialised military Sengupta, Producing the Province: colonial governance training and did not usually become major drivers of and spatial cultures in district headquarter towns of provincial urbanisation. Eastern India 1786–c. 1900, Chapter 6 (University of 5. After the suppression of the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 Westminster unpublished dissertation, 2011). (when Indian soldiers across the country 11. The residential bungalow plots of district officers were rebelled against the British), the British Crown took regularly of sizes between 5-10 acres, going up to 30- over control of India from the East India Company in 40 acres as, for example, in the Collector Anderson’s 1858. bagan [‘grove’] in Bankura (37.9 acres). Internal 6. The Company’s land reforms in 1793 (called the Per- space standards were also generous, typically ranging manent Settlement) conferred perpetual rights of agri- from 16ft-20ft x 30ft-40ft for public rooms, 20ft-24ft cultural revenue collection to zamindars or tax x 16ft-20ft for bedrooms and 8ft-12ft x 8ft-30ft for collectors, provided they paid taxes on time. This anterooms and service spaces. resulted, on the one hand, in the confiscation of a 12. For authoritative studies on the zamindari system in number of defaulting zamindaries and, on the other, Bengal, see, eg, Christopher Bayly, Indian Society and in the emergence of a new zamindar class who the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge, Cam- bought estates at auction. Timely revenue payment in bridge University Press, 1988); Thomas Metcalf, Land, effect translated de facto into perpetual property Landlords and the British Raj: Northern India in the rights for zamindars and also fed directly into the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, University of California exploitation of farming tenants to maximise wealth. Press, 1979); Ranajit Guha, A Rule of Property for 7. M. S. Islam, ‘Life in mufassal towns of nineteenth Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of Permanent Settlement century Bengal’, in, Kenneth Ballhatchet, John Harris, (Paris, Mouton, 1963). eds, The City in South Asia (London, Dublin, Curzon 13. This was closely linked to the colonial government’s Press Ltd; Atlantic Highlands, Humanities Press Inc., policy, from 1836, of replacing Farsi (Persian) in official 1980), pp. 226–230. communications with English and Bengali, whereby 8. For an overview of the larger urban imagination of English education became essential for governmental these towns, their relationship with the surrounding work, as also to the new system of public instruction environment, notions of rural-urban picturesque and espoused by the Governor General Bentinck. In work-home-leisure relationships, ensuing urban addition to this, the increasing need for modern spatial patterns and links between office and domestic health care and the high levels of land litigation gave building sites and typologies, see the Author’s earlier rise to professional groups such as doctors and lawyers. 941

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14. This was felt acutely during cholera and malaria epi- of my school days, Mahadevprasad Sinha, ed. (Calcutta, demics in lower Bengal in the early- to mid-nineteenth Editions Indian, 1969), pp. 23–25. Robert Montgomery century. Martin also discusses the practice, in rural Bengal, of not 15. Kartikeyachandra Roy, Diwan Kartikeyachandrer building one house, but rather, a separate house or hut Atmajibani [‘Diwan Kartikeyachandra’s autobiogra- for each purpose, surrounded by a common fence, to phy’] (Calcutta, nd), p. 116. form a dwelling (‘vati’ or ‘vari’): Robert Montgomery 16. Ibid. Martin, The history, antiquities, topography and stat- 17. Bath and lavatory areas were often housed outside the istics of Eastern India, Vol. 2, Bhagulpoor, Goruckpoor, residential premises in open communal areas. and Dinajepoor (London, W.M. H Allen & Co., 1838), 18. Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Barir Abohaoa’ [‘My home pp. 117–118 (edited from Francis Hamilton’s accounts environment’], in Jibansmriti [‘Recollections of my of those districts, 1807–14). life’], Smritikatha (Calcutta, Bangiya Sahitya Parishat, 24. K. Roy, Diwan Kartikeyachandrer Atmajibani, op. cit., 1967), p. 128. Although Tagore recounts this in the p. 141. context of metropolitan Calcutta, such attributes 25. An upper storey seems to have been a later addition. characterised even provincial urban homes. The original cooking, bath and lavatory areas (possibly 19. Nabinchandra Sen, Amaar Jiban [‘My life’], Sajanikanta made of temporary materials and not found on the site Das, ed. (Calcutta, Sanat Kumar Gupta, Bangiya anymore) were most likely outside the main building, Sahitya Parishat, 1959), pp. 11–12. following prevalent Bengali customs related to 20. Conversation with Ratna Banerjee, the present occu- notions of purity and pollution. pier, recalling accounts of her mother-in-law, who in 26. Based the oral account of Pradip Banerjee, the present turn recalled narratives handed down from older gen- heir, talking of his ancestor who was practising from erations (10th March, 2010). the premises as an established pleader in 1862. The 21. By the late nineteenth century, European furniture had first building was thus constructed possibly sometime found its way well into Bengali homes, but was used in the 1850s. mostly as an accessory in addition to the floor-based 27. Post of accounts officer in the colonial cutcherry. furniture described. 28. For example, in the case of Guruprasad Mukherjee, a 22. Jogeshchandra Roy, Atmacharit [‘My life’] (Bankura, vakil or lawyer of the East India Company in the district Ananda Kumar Rot, 2002), p. 13. court in Bankura, this was about 1.86 acres of land by 23. See, for example, the Reverend Lal Behari Dey’sdescrip- about 1865–70: based on family papers in the tion of a typical peasant’s hut in the Burdwan area possession of Debashish Mukherjee, one of the around 1850 as having a central open courtyard present heirs. (uthan) surrounded by individual units like the principal 29. Village dwellings up to the mid-nineteenth century hut (sleeping room and family storage) with a verandah usually did not contain a baithak-khana. As observed to receive guests, maternity room with a verandah for by Lal Behari Dey, in a typical rural dwelling in Bengal the rice-husking implement, kitchen (pak-sala or the verandah was the ‘parlour’: the place to receive ranna-ghar), cow-house (gosala), domestic granary and entertain guests, with little distinction between (gola or marai) and straw stack (palui). Lal Behari Dey, relatives, friends of the family and other visitors (Dey, Bengal Peasant Life; Folk Tales of Bengal; Recollections Bengal Peasant Life, op. cit., p. 23). Robert Montgomery 942

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Martin also observed that only Muslim households had versity Press, 2008); Gautam Bhadra, Jaal Rajar Katha. a separate structure in which to receive guests due to Bardhamaner Pratapchand (Calcutta, Ananda Publish- their higher requirement for privacy (Martin, The ers, 2002). For a discussion on the relationship history, antiquities, topography and statistics of between public sphere and public space in nine- Eastern India, op. cit.). The role of the verandah as teenth-century Calcutta, see S. Chattopadhayay, the ‘parlour’ in villages seems to have been formalised Representing Calcutta, op. cit. within the urban context into the baithak-khana, also 36. A significant example of this was, for instance, the enabling a more clear-cut division between private Ratan Library in Suri. It was set up possibly in the and public domains. Sometimes large zamindari 1890s at his own house by Shibratan Mitra, a houses in villages also contained a baithak-khana, Bengali officer in the Suri Collectorate, and a literary but this pattern seems to have been a flow-back into enthusiast and collector. By the early twentieth the village from the town. century the library had a collection of over eight thou- 30. This was possibly linked to paucity of land for expansion sand books (including many rare ones), as well as of the dwelling within/ adjacent to the existing plot as antique sculpture, coins, images and maps. Its reader- also to preserve the ‘house with a garden’ model. ship extended far beyond the house into a larger pro- 31. Rabindranath Tagore, Jogajog (Calcutta, Vishwa- vincial region. See, eg, Sukumar Sinha, Siuri Shaharer Bharati publications, 1929), pp. 1–2. Itihaash (Suri, Ujjal Sarkar, 2008), p. 47. Another such 32. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments (Prin- collection of books was that of Ramdas Sen of Bahar- ceton, Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 6. ampur, an eminent writer and scholar in the 1860s 33. The bhadrolok (literally meaning a ‘well-mannered and 1870s. Sen’s library (which held about 3,500 person’ in Bengali) referred to a new class of ‘gentlefolk’ books at its peak) occupied the central space of his in colonial Bengal, usually from upper castes and typi- outer house and also served as a public library for cally from zamindari backgrounds, professional classes, large sections of the town’s readers (based on an prosperous merchants or civil servants. Entitlement to interview with Mrs Sen, the present heiress, and on being called a bhadrolok came with the refinement con- information in the official website of the National ferred by high levels of Indian and English education and Library of India, Calcutta, to which the collection a taste for the liberal arts. was bequeathed in 1951: URL:http://www. 34. Based on the Author’s survey and documentation of nationallibrary.gov.in/nat_lib_stat/gift_collection3. the residential premises of the Sahana family, personal html (accessed 27/07/10) interviews with Manik Sahana (the present heir) and 37. For a study of the adda as a cultural practice in colonial the study of family documents by the Author in Bengal, see D. Chakrabarty, ‘Adda: A history of social- 2007–2008. ity’,inProvincializing Europe, op. cit., pp. 180–213. 35. For studies of the development of the public sphere 38. Interview with Prabal Chakrabarty, the present heir, and its relationship with the private domain in nine- recounting narratives handed down from his father teenth-century Calcutta, see, eg, P. Chatterjee, The and grandfather. Nation and Its Fragments, op. cit.; Dipesh Chakrabarty, 39. It is interesting to note here that it was usual practice in Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial thought and his- houses on public bazaar streets, for the doors of the torical difference (Princeton NJ, Oxford, Princeton Uni- baithak-khana generally to be kept open. With at 943

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least two to three external doors in a row, this meant a between the baithak-khana and the street, but at the high level of connectivity and exposure to the public door that led from the baithak-khana to the inner street. For urban houses, the key filter between the house or at a separate door that led directly to the inside and the outside was therefore not at the layer inner house from the street.